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The IUPUI women’s basketball returns to the floor on Monday, Dec. 6, when it welcomes Centenary to The Jungle for a 7 p.m. tip. The Jags are coming off one of their best offensive performances of the season against Oral Roberts in their last outing and will look for their first conference win of the season against the Ladies.

·         The Jaguars step out of conference and welcome Southern Illinois to The Jungle for a 7 p.m. game on Friday, Dec. 10.

·         Kerah Nelson scored 22 points and IUPUI shot a season-high 58.0 percent from the field, but the Jaguars were unable to overcome 29 turnovers as they lost their Summit League opener, 83-70, to Oral Roberts.

·         The Jags posted season highs for assists (21), steals (19), and 3-point field goal percentage (47.0 percent), but the Golden Eagles shot 56.8 percent from the floor and outscored the Jaguars 32-19 in points off turnovers, proving to be the difference.

·         “One of our goals was to get to the basket and I liked our team’s attitude about attacking the rim tonight,” Parkinson said. “We also shared the basketball really well and hopefully we can build on that Monday.”

·         Turnovers plagued the Jaguars in the early going of the first half as seven IUPUI miscues helped Oral Roberts jump out to a 9-0 lead by the first media timeout.

·         Following the media timeout, IUPUI was able to force the Golden Eagles into a few turnovers resulting in easy transition buckets at the other end. Nelson, Dawn Luster, and Shea Collins, each cashed in fast-break lay-ups helping the Jags cut their deficit to three points, 11-8, with 13:15 to play.

·         Over the next 8:50, IUPUI slowly chipped away at the Oral Roberts lead and used a trey by Gretchen Gaskin at the 4:25 mark to knot the score at 21-21.

·         ORU used a pair of 3-pointers by Christian Key to open up a six-point lead, 29-23, but a pair of buckets by Nelson and a 3-pointer by Collins with 50 seconds on the clocked helped IUPUI cut its deficit to 35-30 entering halftime.

·         The Jags come out of the locker room on fire connecting on its first seven shot attempts of the second half, including a pair of three’s by Janna Eichelberger and a trey by Gretchen Gaskin, evening the score at 47 with 14:58 on the clock.

·         Both teams continued to execute well offensively and a pair of Clara Mitchell free throws brought the Jaguars within two points, 58-56, with 10:55 to go, but a 15-2 run over the next 4:27 by the Golden Eagles widened the ORU advantage to 73-58 with six and a half minutes to play.

·         A quick 7-0 IUPUI response over a 1:30 stretch sparked by full-court pressure brought the Jaguars within eight points, 73-65, but ORU came away with a hard-fought 83-70 win.

 

·         The Golden Eagles come into The Jungle on Saturday with a 4-5 overall record and a 1-0 Summit League record after using a buzzer-beater by Jaci Bigham to down Western Illinois, 68-66, Thursday evening.

·         ORU will be playing its third road game in six days when it takes on the Jaguars Saturday afternoon. Oral Roberts has defeated Missouri State in addition to Western Illinois in the first two legs of its trip.

·         Oral Roberts was the preseason favorite to capture the Summit League Championship this season and sophomore Kevi Luper was tabbed the preseason Player of the Year.

·         To this point, Luper has not disappointed as the 5-10, sophomore guard is averaging 24.2 ppg, one of three ORU players averaging over 10.0 ppg..

·         Fellow sophomore Jaci Bigham and junior Jordan Pyle are the other two double-digit scorers for the Golden Eagles scoring 15.4 ppg and 16.0 ppg, respectively.

·         Pyle is also grabbing 10.2 rebounds per game, making her one of two players in the early going to average a double-double.

·         In the three games at the WBCA Classic, IUPUI had a standout performer from its bench in all three games.

·         In the first game against No. 16 Notre Dame, Demetria Nunley-Lash came off the bench and scored a team-high seven points and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, both marking career highs.

·         In the second game against Butler, Janna Eichelberger dominated the glass with a career-high 14 rebounds and fell two points shy of a double-double.

·         Eichelberger continued her dominance on the glass in the finale with 11 rebounds, marking the second time in her career she has posted back-to-back double-figure rebounding performances.

·         Shea Collins continued that trend against Oral Roberts on Dec. 4 with a career-high tying 13 points off the bench. Nine of Collins’ points came of three 3-pointers.

·         The Jaguars struggled in the opening stages of the season setting teammates up for good shots.

·         IUPUI was averaging over 10.0 assists per game through its 1-5 start, but that all changed in its Summit League opener.

·         The Jaguars dished out a season-high 21 assists in the 13-point loss to Oral Roberts, its most assists since registering 21 assists on Feb. 28, 2009.

·         Four players recorded three or more assists, including four assists apiece from Del’Niqua Bellamy, Demetria Nunley-Lash, and Dawn Luster. The four assists were career-highs for all three players.

·         Through the first six games, IUPUI struggled scoring in the paint.

·         During that stretch, the Jaguars were being outscored 34.3 to 19.0 by their opponents in the lane.

·         Against Oral Roberts, the Jags scored 40 of their 70 points in the paint marking a season high.

·         The 70 points by IUPUI also was a season high.

·         The Jaguars turned up the defensive intensity against Oral Roberts and forced the Golden Eagles into 22 turnovers.

·         18 of those 22 turnovers were steals by the Jaguars.

·         Dawn Luster posted a team and career high with five steals, while fellow freshman Del’Niqua Bellamy added a career-high four steals.

·         The 18 steals were its most steals since Dec. 2, 2009, when they had 19 steals against IU-Southeast.

·         Entering the Oral Roberts game, the Jaguars were last in the Summit League in points per game averaging 45.2 ppg.

·         Thanks to 58.0 percent shooting, the Jaguars scored 70 points in a hard-fought loss to the Golden Eagles.

·         The 58.0 percent shooting and 70 points were both season highs for IUPUI and the 58.0 percent shooting is the second-best single-game shooting percentage in the Summit League this season.

·         It is the highest field goal percentage in a game for IUPUI since it shot 60.9 percent vs. Centenary on Feb. 18, 2008.

·         IUPUI’s victory over IU-Southeast on Nov. 23 gave the Jaguars their first win of the year and the first of the Austin Parkinson era.

·         The Jaguars trailed by 10 with 15:59 to play, before going on a 21-2 run to recapture the lead, a lead it would not relinquish.

·         The comeback victory marked the first time since Feb. 14, 2009, that IUPUI has overcome a double-digit deficit to win.

·         On Feb. 14, 2009, the Jaguars overcame an 11-point deficit with 11:07 to play to defeat Oral Roberts.

·         Seven games in to her freshman season, Del’Niqua Bellamy has shown she is one of the top defenders in head coach Austin Parkinson’s rotation.

·         In IUPUI’s win over IU-Southeast, Bellamy and Jasmine Horne combined to hold Whitney Duncan to three points on 1-of-6 shooting in the second half after scoring nine points on 4-of-4 shooting in the first half.

·         Bellamy followed that up with a career-high four steals in the WBCA finale against Wake Forest.

·         During the next game against Oral Roberts, Bellamy equaled her steal total from the Wake Forest game.

·         Bellamy leads the team in steals (1.7 spg), and despite being one of the smaller players on the team at 5-3, she leads the team with five blocks.